Admit one · The fine print

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 23 August 2026

There's no account, no sign-up, and no email address anywhere in Showbound. But we're not a purely local app either: every show you track is mirrored to our server so we can send you a real alert if something about it changes or the weather turns — that part is automatic, not a setting. If you turn on Friends, a further, much smaller slice of your information is also shared with people you deliberately connect with — never more than what's described below, and never with anyone else.

What Showbound stores on your device

Everything you enter, including artists, venues, dates, set times, ratings, setlists, notes, and who you went with, is stored locally on your iPhone using Apple's on-device database first. That's always the source of truth — the app works fully offline, and nothing here requires a network connection.

Because it's stored on your device, it's included in your device backup if you use iCloud Backup or a local encrypted backup. That backup is governed by Apple's privacy policy, not this one.

What's mirrored to our server automatically

The first time Showbound can reach the internet, it creates an anonymous identity for your device on our server — not an account: no email, no phone number, no Sign in with Apple, nothing you type or choose. From then on, each time you open the app, your show collection is mirrored to that identity: every field you entered for every show, including notes, ratings, setlists, and who you went with. This is not part of Friends and happens whether or not you ever use Friends — it's what lets our server know which shows exist and when, so it can:

• —show you posts and alerts relevant to a show as it approaches (see "Show-day intel" below); and
• —send you a push notification if a tracked show's venue posts a schedule change or severe weather is forecast — but only if you've granted Notifications permission, which uploads a push token to the same identity.

This data is not public and is not shown to any other Showbound user except exactly what's described in the Friends section below. It's accessible to us for operating the service (the same way any server-backed app's data is accessible to its operator), stored under access controls scoped to your device's anonymous identity, and never sold or used for advertising.

If you use the in-app bug report form, the text you write is sent to us the same way, along with dull diagnostic details shown to you on screen before you send (app version, device model, OS version, how many shows you have stored) — never your show contents or location. You can optionally attach the photo you just scanned as a ticket; that's off by default and asks for a separate, explicit yes every time, with a warning that a ticket photo can contain a scannable barcode.

Two things never leave your device as part of any of this: your precise location (used only on-device to compute a routed travel time — see "Permissions" below) and any raw scanned-ticket photo outside the one explicit bug-report opt-in above.

Friends (opt-in)

Friends is a separate, further opt-in on top of the automatic mirroring above. Turning it on lets you connect with other Showbound users by sending them a one-time invite link, using the same anonymous per-device identity described above (no separate sign-up).

What you additionally provide when you use Friends:

• —A display name you choose and type yourself. It's the only user-authored identity Friends has — there's no avatar, bio, or handle.
• —Your friend graph — who you're connected to — so mutual friendships and overlap can be computed.

What a friend can see about your shows, and only after you're mutually connected: artist, venue, city, date, and status (upcoming or attended) — for both your upcoming shows and your past collection. This is a narrow, explicit allowlist on our server; a friend's app is never given the rest of your record to filter through.

What a friend can never see, no matter what: your notes, ratings, and setlists; who you went with (companions); where your ticket is stored; where you parked; how long it takes you to get there; or your device's identifier. To be precise about the boundary: these fields are part of the automatic server mirror described above like everything else in your collection, so our server does hold them — but they are excluded, by name, from what any friend-facing lookup is allowed to return. A friend seeing them isn't a setting you can loosen; it's not part of what the feature can do at all.

A display name is visible only to someone you deliberately connected to via a single-use invite code you sent them — never to the public, never to a stranger who happens to have your name. See "Reporting and blocking" below for what happens if a friend's display name is a problem, or if you want to stop someone from connecting with you at all.

Your device identity

Everything Showbound sends to our server — the automatic show mirror, a push token, and (if you use it) Friends — is scoped to the same single anonymous per-device identity, created the first time the app can reach the internet. Not by email, phone number, or Sign in with Apple. In Friends specifically, that identity is paired with the display name you typed. That has a real, honest cost: it does not survive getting a new phone, and the same person using two devices looks like two unrelated strangers, both to Friends and to the show mirror behind push/intel. Showbound's Settings say this plainly rather than imply anything carries over automatically.

Reporting and blocking

If a friend's display name or activity is a problem, you can report it and block them from the app, without needing them to agree or even be notified. Blocking removes the friendship immediately and stops that person from connecting with you again. Reports go to a queue a real person reviews and acts on — see the Support page for how to reach us directly about it.

What Showbound does not do

• —No analytics or usage tracking of any kind.
• —No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
• —No third-party SDKs.
• —No account, email address, or sign-in — Showbound uses only the anonymous per-device identity described above, never an account.
• —No selling or sharing of data with anyone outside Showbound, and no sharing between users beyond exactly what's described above.

Permissions

Showbound asks for two permissions, both optional, and both requested at the moment they'd actually do something rather than when you first open the app. Declining either leaves the app fully usable.

• Notifications — two different things ride on this one permission. Your leave-by and doors-open reminders are scheduled entirely on your device; nothing about those specific reminders goes through a server. Separately, granting this permission also uploads a push token (see "What's mirrored to our server automatically" above), which lets us push you a real alert — off our server, not scheduled locally — if a tracked show's venue posts a schedule change or severe weather is forecast.
• Location — used only while you're using the app, to calculate a real travel time to tonight's venue instead of an estimate. Your location is used on the device to compute a route and is never stored, logged, or transmitted to us or anyone else. If you decline, Showbound falls back to a per-show travel estimate.

Show-day intel

In the days before a show you're tracking, Showbound can show you public posts about it — from the artist's or venue's own X (formerly Twitter) account — plus a weather forecast for outdoor venues. These are fetched by our server on your behalf, using the show mirror described above to know which artists/venues to check and when, and delivered to the app for display. This surfaces existing public posts; it does not post, follow, or act as you on X in any way, and it is not personalized using anything about you beyond which shows you track.

Venue lookups

When you save a show, Showbound asks Apple's mapping service to turn the venue name you typed into map coordinates, so the venue can appear on your map. That request contains the venue text you entered. It does not contain your location or any identifier for you or your device. It's handled by Apple under Apple's privacy policy.

Your data is yours

Settings includes a full export of everything Showbound holds, and a "Delete All Shows" option that removes your collection from the device immediately. That deletion also clears the server-side mirror of your shows, the next time the app is online — it isn't instant if you're offline when you delete, but it isn't left behind either.

To be precise about deleting the app itself: it immediately and irreversibly removes everything on your device, but — because there's no way for an app to phone home on its way out — it does not reach our server first, so anything already mirrored there (your shows, and if you used Friends, your display name and friend graph) stays until we remove it by hand.

Settings also has a "Delete Friends Profile" button. It deletes your display name and every friend connection from our server immediately — including removing you from the other side of each connection, so a friend you were connected to no longer sees you either. It does not touch your tracked shows; that stays "Delete All Shows"' job, described above. This is separate from removing a single friend or blocking someone, which only ends that one connection and leaves your profile in place for everyone else you're still connected to.

Children

Showbound is not directed at children and collects no personal information from anyone, including children.

Changes

If a future version of Showbound adds anything that leaves your device, this policy will be updated before that version ships, and the change will be described plainly here rather than buried.

Contact

Questions about this policy: support@showbound.app